Test Drive: How simply sitting in Grant Park’s Intown Salt Room can help you unwind

I can’t believe 30 minutes are up. I’ve sunk into a tan-leather, “zero gravity” chair that vibrates subtly in sync with the soothing music pumping through my headphones, and, despite my closed eyelids, I can still sense a dim, rosy glow from the Himalayan salt brick wall. But Carrie Wright, a longtime corporate marketing professional who recently opened Intown Salt Room, opens the door, ending my session. Her Grant Park studio offers both meditation, which combines salt and sound, and breathing sessions.

Salt therapy has become something of the rage recently (see: that must-have pink salt lamp on everyone’s nightstands), though its history dates back to the Greeks and later in the 1800s, when Polish salt miners also discovered its beneficial respiratory relief. Note: You don’t eat the salt; you don’t touch the salt—you just lay there, breathing in the salt. A machine pumps therapeutic dry salt mist into the air that is supposed to nourish dry skin, provide anti-inflammatory relief, and loosen toxins inside and out. Oh, and it eases stress. I’ll be back—probably for that chair, but definitely for the salt. (Sessions from $40, intownsaltroom.com)

Since 1961, Atlanta magazine, the city’s premier general interest publication, has served as the authority on Atlanta, providing its readers with a mix of long-form nonfiction, lively lifestyle coverage, in-depth service journalism, and literary essays, columns, and profiles.